HHS OIG DESIGN SPRINT - 2018

CONTRIBUTIONS: SERVICE DESIGN | PRINT DESIGN | UX COPY
PLATFORM: DESIGN SPRINT
TIMELINE: 2 WEEKS

THE PROBLEM

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) is trying to innovate how they approach problem solving within the federal technology space and wanted to implement design sprints into their product delivery lifecycle.

During my Coding it Forward Fellowship with HHS OIG, I was brought in to help our contractor, Excella Consulting, and the Digital Services Division within HHS OIG in creating and delivering a small design sprint for the senior staff during their annual meeting.

So, how might we, the digital services team at HHS OIG, construct a design sprint for a federal agency?

DISCOVERY: WHY DOES HHS OIG NEED TO DO A DESIGN SPRINT?

Design sprints and design thinking methodology have been recently popularized thanks to many corporations making the effort to bring those principles into their organizational structure as well as influence from thought leaders such as IDEO.

Despite this, our team had to consider why HHS OIG as an organization needs a design sprint. During a meeting with the CIO and CTO, we came up with these anchor points:

• Design sprints are a great way to kickstart projects

• Ideas can be generated through multiple perspectives and roles

• Design sprints create a common understanding to business problems

• Prototypes are generated and given feedback quickly, making for faster iteration

RESEARCH: GAINING SOME CONTEXT INTO HHS OIG

Learning the Domain

HHS OIG as an organization is divided into several components based on the roles and type of work. The four main components outside of the Office of Management and Policy (where Digital Services resides under) are:

• OCIG - The Office of Counsel to the Inspector General. This office consists of lawyers and legal professionals who provide counsel to insurance fraud related matters.

• OAS - The Office of Audit Services. This office consists of auditors who analyze each case.

• OI - The Office of Investigators. This office consists of investigators and law enforcement officials related to health insurance fraud. They actually go out into the field for investigations.

• OEI - The Office of Evaluation and Inspections. This office consists of evaluators who look at health insurance fraud from a broad perspective.

Splitting the Groups

We decided then to split the design sprint into the four main component groups so that each group could focus on the context of their mission when identifying performance measures.

IDEATION: FROM IDEAS TO CONCEPTION

We began conceptualizing how we would create the experience of this design sprint. We tried to focus on how to best allocate time since our time was very limited (1 hour and 15 minutes). We sought different opportunities for our users to look at performance measures from a different angle. Some perspectives we considered were constraints, opposite solutions, and defining outcomes. However, after a few days of experimentation, another designer on the team brought forward the idea of territory mapping with “5 Ps” as an approach for the senior staff:

• People

• Places

• Products

• Process

• Performance

Each “P'“ represented different ways each component interacted with HHS OIG as an organization. They were each asked to think about the different territories in the context of measuring performance. The final “P” (Performance) was where each person could map what they would like to see being used more in performance measuring.

PROTOTYPING: BUILDING A DESIGN SPRINT FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

Since a large amount of the Excella team on this project were markedly not designers but rather developers or business analysts, we made sure that when breaking up facilitator groups for each component, there was at least one designer or someone with design related experience to help facilitate the sprint. I was placed to facilitate the Office of Inspectors (OI) with the Product Design Lead for the project.

Providing some Context for new Design Sprint Participants

When senior staff were first asked to map the different territories, we knew that they would understandably be a little confused. In order to remediate this, we decided to give them some context into design terminology.

Creating a “Design Dictionary”

I was tasked with designing a one page “design dictionary” explaining some of the new design terminology that they would come across over the course of the sprint as well as during presentations from the Digital Services Division that day. When describing the terms, I had to be very deliberate in how I worded explanations so that someone not from a design background could understand it. During initial drafts, I presented the sheet to members of the Excella team who did not have a design background to see if they understood the terms.

Below is the final printout. Each senior staff member received one of the printouts upon sitting down in the meeting room.

Once our CIO and CTO finished their initial presentations on the importance of introducing design sprints into HHS OIG, all four components were split up and placed with their respective facilitators. Each territory (or P) was split into 10 minute increments save for the last “P” (performance), which was given about 15 minutes of time.

EVALUATION: FEEDBACK AND FUTURE ITERATIONS

So what did we learn from our Design Sprint?

After the senior staff vacated the room, the design team got together to synthesize some of the common trends as well as observations we noted during the sprint. Here were some of our findings:

• OI desired mobility among their tools and processes, especially since many of them spent a lot of time traveling outside the OIG office

• OI wanted efficiency in reporting across all people

• OI wanted speed of access as well as usability to the massive amounts of data they collect

What improvements can still be made?

• We have to standardize how we talk about measurable outcomes so that everyone can glean the same understanding across all components

• We should standardize how we organize case outcomes (plea deals, case outcomes, convictions, etc.)

BONUS*

I presented about my design sprint as well as a few other projects with my fellowship for HHS Demo Day! You can find the presentation here.